Bruins ditch excuses, focus on fixes

UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel told a somber locker room of Bruins to "remember the sting" after last Saturday's loss to Stanford spoiled their yet-to-be defeated season.

The Bruins' vaunted defense was already feeling the hurt, muttering through their dejection and then vowing, promising and guaranteeing to respond and regroup for this Saturday against No. 13 Oregon and the Ducks' Pac-10 leading scoring offense at the Rose Bowl.

This all might sound like fitting sentiment for a Whitney Houston ballad or one of Neuheisel's see-the-rainbow-after-the-hurricane speeches. But what we have here is growth, a remarkable change in the attitude and posture of the UCLA program.

Nowhere has this change been more apparent than on the defense. At no time has this shown more than last Saturday, after a defeat, when each player was shouldering his own errors and rushing to shed his soiled uniforms, fly home and pore over the game film.

Players on last season's team, which had been emotionally eroded by a 4-8 record, had this understandable habit of using the excuse crutches of youth, inexperience and a new coaching staff to get from week to week.

Losses were unfortunate but expected.

Players on this season's defense ditch the crutches. They grab rulers to measure their progress, clutch the mirrors to see their mistakes and want to get up in the grill – or is it bill? – of the Ducks. Losses now are unacceptable.

The Bruin D would have played the Ducks last Sunday, if that could have been arranged. The defensive players left Stanford Stadium wanting their sting gone by putting the hurt on someone else.

"How could we have let this happen?" said Bruins defensive tackle Brian Price after the 24-16 loss to Stanford dropped UCLA to 3-1 overall, 0-1 in the Pac-10. "We have to remember this pain. We can't let it happen again. We can't play this way next week against Oregon. We've got to fix the mistakes now."

This is pride in motion – and emotion. The Bruin defense has taken responsibility for the team, knowing that it needs to hold opponents within a fourth-quarter-touchdown's reach until the make-due offense can make way.

The Stanford loss was, in senior linebacker Kyle Bosworth's worlds, "a wake-up call to us." The defense was slipshod instead of its usual stalwart, missing tackles, committing careless and costly penalties, turning porous on coverages and allowing the Cardinal to convert on too many third downs.

On the defense, nobody pointed fingers. When asked about their shortcomings against the Cardinal, Price said, "I don't know who committed the penalty. We didn't get the job done."

Going into their next game, the Bruin defense has plenty to defend. It will go against the Ducks who have won their past four games, have a balanced offensive attack and lead the Pac-10 in scoring (34.2 points per game).

The Bruins have their statistical walls to throw in front of the Ducks. The defense ranks in the league's upper half in every statistical category: second in scoring allowed (15.5 points per game), third in total yards allowed (281.2), fourth against the pass (192.0) and fifth against the rush (99.2).

Safety Rahim Moore leads the nation in interceptions with five in four games and is tops in the Pac-10 with nine passes defended. Linebacker Reggie Carter ranks sixth in the conference in tackles (7.8 per game). Preseason All-America junior Price, who has drawn double-team attention, ranks third in tackles for loss (seven solo TFLs).

The numbers didn't matter after the defeat, when all the defensive players wanted to do was think about the tackles they missed, the penalties that hurt and, as Price said, "all the times we shot ourselves in the foot."

Pride was what left them in the post-game locker room with their heads hanging the lowest, their postures the most slackened and their words the most self-critical.

Carter said, "We should have held up better against them," while teammate Bosworth looked ahead, saying "We (the players on defense) feel really terrible about what happened here (at Stanford). We're devastated as a unit and, I promise you, we'll be ready for Oregon."

This was pride talking and a program growing. Now the Bruin D just wants to get rid of the sting.

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